I have had the opportunity to try out wave for my domain for the last couple weeks. I have used it on masteringwave.com. It has been a really nice experience and looks like it will propel wave in to the business side.

First Waves has already covered some of the functionality at with their post Google Wave Available to 31000 University Students. Where they talk about a university using Wave and show some screenshots.

I have been using wave to organize my team’s efforts since we got started using the preview version of Wave. But it did lack some features that are really nice in organizational perspectives.

It is still in preview and there will be more changes to the wave system. So it is likely to change in the future.

I really like the way the group function. All your mail groups can be used as groups in wave. It seems like the groups are using groups for apps, if such a thing exists. It is nice that you only have to provision the users on place.

It is possible to see when you are Waveing with people outside of the domain. This is really nice feature, and allows you to see if it is a private conversation you are having.

Also as with Wave you get your whole address book, so you can communicate with the people on your list.

It is of course to communicate outside of your own domain with other domains. I have not yet configured anything in my DNS to allow this type of wave communication. I guess that it has to be configured the same wave you configure your mail domain. But since there are no third party waves out there yet the configuration is probably quite minimal.

We got access to see how it was to develop apps for a hosted wave service. It is quite possible, but we still have some issues that we need to figure out how to manage before we start using it to the public. But basically wave works just the same way, it is just not sure that all participants are from the domain googlewave.com anymore. So if that is hard coded in any robot/gadgets it should be removed.

We used Google single sign on to make it possible to sign-up to log on to our service. For this to work properly, our app needs to be a part of the Apps Marketplace.

When you create a wave in the domain, the wave id will be prefixed with the wave id. The Wave id is then longer then the waves from googlewave.com. It is a question if those waves also will be prefixed to fit into the structure. So, when all waves need to be prefixed with the domains, then all the current waves will not work. I suspect there will be a solution for this.

For the usability part of the application, it is really nice to just have one place where all communication, both for guidelines and day to day communication.

On Google IO we will be releasing our caseish.com app. Stay tuned to learn more on how that will help you.

In MasteringWave, we have been developing a wave application for a long time. We are about to think that the application is ready for external feedback. It is in no way complete, but we would really like to show what we are capable of making this happen and get some feedback on how the application is working.

We could probably continue to develop on the application for the next three years and then make it available to the public to get response. But it is really important to get response from the market.

We are therefore happy that we have a boot to show of our project at Google IO next week. It will be exciting to see how people find the application and are sure they find it useful. If you want to get early access to the application, be sure to sign up to our newsletter. Then we will provide you with an early access link.

If you will be at Google IO be sure to drop by at our booth in the Developer Sandbox area and have a talk about how Wave can be used in your organization.

Here is the link to our Developer Sandbox, http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/sandbox.html

The default start screen has been changed. You can now start a new wave containing some prefilled content.

Templates are not something new The Shiny Wave had a post about a user contributed list of Wave templates. I’m not sure if any of the templates from the project has been reused. But some of the ideas have. The difference is that with this new addition you do not have to find a wave template and the create a new Wave based on this.

An example of this looks like this.

The idea is fantastic, it will allow you have some much better synchronized and harmonized waves. It seems like it is missing the option of adding your own templates to the list. It could be some extensions you added or something defined in your Wave for your Enterprise.

Probably the most requested feature of Google Wave has been delivered yesterday. It is simply to get email notification when a Wave changes.

It is quite easy to start to use. Simply select the dropdown button on your inbox, select notifications. Then you have the option to select how often you want the notifications.

The email you then will get looks like the following.

One feature missing feature is that it is not possible to look for updates in the inbox. I might only be interested in updates in Wave, when a search term is updated. So I only get updates when Waves with the word SAP or the tag SAP is updated.

I currently use Google Wave Notifier to get updates, when a Wave is changing. The program gives instant notifications when your inbox changes. It is quite useful. But it is probably not a solution for non-it savvy users how don’t want to install all kinds of addons.

For the Google Wave meetup we in Copenhagen today, we did all the planning regarding the meeting in a wave. It did not work out. It was only three participants how showed up to the meetup, and it was all the presenters or organizers. I hope that it is just the weather, but think there could also be some part of the wave usage that could be different.

We did some mistakes that I will probably do again, but at least try to avoid.

• First we did a survey about when to have the meeting, and we had to change the time because it did not fit with the schedule of university where the event should be held.
• I also asked people to contribute and participate in create an agenda. Most people are not interested in giving presentations, but instead what to learn. Which is why the meeting is taking place.
• We did not send out reminder mails. It would probably be a good idea to send out reminder mails to all the involved participants in the wave a day or two before. Many people may have mute the wave so they don’t see it as a reminder that an upcoming event is taking place.
• Did not have a clear RSVP where people could indicate that they were going to attend.

So next time we are going to plan a meetup. We will create an agenda and a place a head of time and then add people to sign up to the event. I if they want then people can contribute to the agenda if they want more topics.

I will also send an email to all persons how have indicated that they would like to come or are coming. That will for me sometimes make it easier to attend.

Planning meetings might be something that will be much easier to do in 12sprints, since you have a much more controlled environment for creating decisions.

I talked with Jacques Holst about planning, and he said the web never had been a one communication strategy. I think we have to remember that there are many other forms of communication to look for.

Image by Jonas K